


Recovory

by Nutelladoo



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phil is a sweat heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:01:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutelladoo/pseuds/Nutelladoo
Summary: “Is this Philip Lester, roommate of Daniel Howell?”“Ur, yes. Speaking. Goodness, what’s he done now? Whatever it is, I’ll pay for the damage.”“Actually, this is the hospital. Mr Howell’s been stabbed. You’re his next of k-”“I’m on my way.”





	

When Phil gets to that grotty little room with curtains that are a sickening shade of blue, Dan’s already had surgery. He was completely out of it, having had drugs poured into his system. The older of the two can’t help but let his mind trick him into thinking that Dan, funny and sweet and kind and perfect and his partner in crime Dan, the boy he's in love with Dan, is just sleeping. Thinking that Dan just wore himself out staying up in till 5 am one too many nights and is sleeping it off. It’s not an entirely implausible idea; it’s happened before and Dan is one heck of a heavy sleeper, so perhaps Phil could be forgiven for trying to wave it off as that. 

Apart from the fact that there are a large number of factors ganging up against the idea. Like the horrible hospital stench, the painful pulsing of his younger friend’s heart monitor and the way that Dan looks like he's just been attacked by a vampire. He's face was awfully pale, and could see a dark bruise standing out in stark contrast to he's Snow White skin. In fact, Phil thinks, Dan looks more dead than asleep. It’s this thought that makes Phil decide that it’s best not to avoid anything, to just accept that Dan’s hurt and healing.  

The doctor told Phil that he should Dan, that the poor boy would be awfully scared and shaken and that maybe hearing Phil’s voice would reassure him through his veil of unconscious disillusionment. And Phil wants to talk to Dan, really he does, but the idea of Dan not laughing or answering back is just too much to bear. 

But he’s got to say something; Dan would if it was Phil who’d had his guts spilt all over the pavement outside their local supermarket just because some guy needed an extra buck or 2. It’s just that Phil doesn’t know what to say; only that he wants to get it right more than he’s ever wanted anything else in his life ever before. 

“Dan? Can you hear me? Um, I-"

Just like that, sat on a cold plastic chair that feels to be a million miles away from home and with his hand wrapped tightly around the boy that he's in love withs, Phil breaks down. Starts sobbing and seriously plans on never stopping, not until Dan wakes up anyway. 

He just doesn’t know how to function without his best friend. And he doesn’t want to have to know either, because knowing that would mean remembering a life without Daniel Howell; a life so mundane and dragging that death would have been welcome at one stage. But Dan saved him and now Phil’s going to look after Dan whilst the miracles of modern medicine work their magic. 

Phil still can’t speak though, not without erupting into tears and making a nurse poke her head around the door with a look of pity that seems to have been used so often that it’s practically plastered to her face, so the black haired boy squeezes his best friend’s hand and leans down to kiss it. 

It’s cold against his lips; dead. 

No!

Not dead; asleep.

 

*****

“Oh my Gosh." A scruffy, brown-haired boy gawps, tears welling in his eyes that he refuses to let go of. Perhaps he would if only one if his closest friends didn’t so clearly need him to be strong on their behalf. “What the… How could… God.” He flounders, reaching out desperately for something halfway cognitive to say and instead settles for flopping into a plastic chair next to the one that Phil has been perched on since last night. “Oh, Dan. What’ve they done to you?”

As expected Dan doesn’t reply. Only carries on breathing, chest rising and falling as though the whole of fall out boy was sitting on his chest. It’s response enough for the two conscious boys though, just knowing that Dan is still with them. 

All three are silent for stretch of time that seems to say more than any words ever could. They sit, completely silent for what seams to the two conscious malesThe silence floods the room until it’s bubbling over with everything that isn’t being said; how much this is hurting everyone, how desperate Phil is for Dan to wake up, how sorry Phil is for all the things he’s ever done to displease the younger. 

How much he needs Dan.

“PJ was gonna come, but the hospital said you’re only allowed two visitors at a time and we thought you’d want Phil with you.” The newcomer breaks the blaring quietness, voice full of apprehension and aching with exhaustion; he didn’t sleep at all last night, not since Phil phoned him at around eleven-thirty. “Oh, it’s Chris, by the way. And I’m totally not crying right now, okay? Because I know you’re gonna get better and you’ll laugh at me for crying over this. So I’m not crying.”

Chris could swear that he can see Dan trying to smile and Phil is pretty sure he can feel his hand being squeezed back but neither boy says anything because what it they’re wrong; what if it’s just wishful thinking and they jinx it? 

Phil turns to Chris, still not letting go of Dan, and tries his best to give him a smile. It comes out more like a desperate kind of expression, begging for help and for someone to just make it better. Make Dan better so that they can go home and make YouTube videos and play Guitar Hero and drink ShakeAway milkshakes until they throw up. 

That’s when the realisation hits; Phil might not ever get to do any of those things with Dan ever again. Sure, the doctor hadn’t said that Dan wasn’t going to make it but he also said to be prepared and that several important parts of Dan had been hit by the blade. In short, Dan could die. And then where would Phil be? 

Dead too, he thinks. Deader than dead; just a zombie. Cold and dead and alone without his Danosaur. 

“How are you doing, Phil?” 

Phil’s caught completely off-guard by the question because this should all be about Dan; Dan who’s been stabbed and very nearly died. Phil’s not the hurt one, not physically anyway, and nobody’s asked about him yet nor does he expect them to. As far as Phil is concerned, the only person worth bothering about at the moment is Dan. Yet it feels nice to have Chris care, to have someone looking out for him whilst he’s looking after Dan. Kind of like a chain, Phil thinks, because he knows that PJ will comfort Chris when Chris goes home later and starts bawling about the state of their best friend. 

That’s just how they function; they can all count on each other at a second’s notice. Best friends to the end. 

“Honestly? I don’t know, Chris.” Phil sighs, fixating his eyes to the patch of covered tummy where he knows a zigzag of violent stitches are holding the twenty-one-year-old together. “He’s my best friend. I lose him? I think I’ll lose me as well.”

“He loves you, you know.” Chris’ conscience is telling him to shut the hell up for once, to actually manage to keep the secret that Dan thrust upon him a few drunken nights back, but his heart is telling him that it needs to be told; that Phil needs to hear it. That Dan needs it to be said. “Like, really loves you. He told me so. And I think right now, Phil, right now is when you need to show him that you love him too.”

Everything’s screaming at Phil; the heart monitor, his own thoughts, Chris’ words of honest truth that Phil can tell are in no way a joke. Because he did kind of know it, anyone who’s ever seen Dan talk about Phil does, but he’d ignored it. It was nothing to do with shyness or clichéd fears of rejection, it just… never happened. As is the way with so many things in life. But right now, Phil wishes it had because then he’d be able to simply take this all away, be the perfect Prince Charming rescuing his princess from the clutches of the beast.

Phil wriggles around in his chair a bit, the most movement he’s made since plonking himself there last night, and makes a silent pact to himself; if Dan wakes up, he will kiss him. 

And he will love him.

Love him more than anyone’s ever loved anything in this universe. Even more than Amy Rose loves Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

*****

“Ph-phil-il?” 

His voice is croaky and fragmented, full of sleep and pain and fear, and it’s so weak as to be unheard if you don’t know it’s there or you aren’t listening for it. But the addressed is, from his spot with his head resting on Dan’s shoulder, and now that he’s heard it he knows he can’t go back on his pact. 

So Phil gently, ever so gently as though Dan could smash at any given second, presses his lips to Dan’s. The younger boy’s lips are dry and chapped but Phil doesn’t care; because they’re kissing back and that’s all that matters right now, just that Dan’s alive and he wants this as much as Phil does. Phil feels a hand grabbing hungrily onto his hair and in response he deepens the kiss, pulling Dan in and using all of his desperation to make it the best kiss he’s ever given. 

When the two finally pull apart, both smiling despite their setting, Phil immediately grabs a little plastic cup of water and tilts it to Dan’s mouth, making him drink. He decided he was going to look after the boy and he meant it. God, did he mean it. 

“Dan, you’re awa-“

“Please!” Dan squeaks, making Phil stop and stare at him with an expression of mild worry playing on his exhaustion-drained features. “Please, just let me say it.” Unsure of what else to do, Phil nods and waits patiently for Dan to get his raspy breath back. “I love you, Philly.”

Phil’s face splits into a beam so wide that it threatens to swallow his face whole and he swoops down, snatching Dan’s nose in a tickling little peck of the lips. For his part, Dan just smiles weakly and looks very much like the cat that’s got the cream. 

“I love you too, Dan.” Phil pauses, wiping a strand of hair out of his love’s eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes that are all his. “And if you ever wind up in hospital again I’m going to kill you myself.”

It’s meant to be funny, just a little affectionate joke to lighten the heaviness of the room, but it makes Dan blanch and his eyes fill with fear as they flit about in a state of near-panic before finally settling directly on Phil’s with a look of frightened begging. It makes Phil’s heart break, seeing Dan looking so trapped and small in that scratchy hospital bed, but he can’t hug him; he’s still healing and the stiches just can’t get torn, no matter what. 

So Phil grabs both of Dan’s shaking hands in his own and runs his thumbs over the palms, doing his utmost to be the comfort that Dan blatantly needs right now. The kind of comfort that Dan deserves after being unconscious for the best part of three days. 

“Hospital?” Phil just nods, unsure of how to respond verbally to the miserable mewl of a question. “Wanna go home, Philly. Home?”

“Soon, Danosaur. Soon, I promise. We can go home and everything will be good again. Better than good. Promise.”

 

*****

Five days ago Dan came home, a look on his face telling Phil that his now-boyfriend clearly thought all of his Christmases had come at once, and many things have happened within those two days. They’ve moved Phil’s things into Dan’s bedroom after deciding that Dan clearly needs to sleep with a human teddy bear; Phil very nearly burnt down the kitchen whilst trying to make Dan some Delia Smith pancakes; Dan fell asleep on Phil for almost the entire first day; they’ve watched the entire first three series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in one go. 

One thing that hasn’t happened though is Dan leaving the house. He just won’t, no matter how many times Phil’s offered to take him out for a milkshake or asked him to just go for a stroll to the park. The first few times were fine, Phil just put it down to Dan being tired or enjoying being back at home too much to leave, but now it’s gotten worrying. Largely because Dan practically starts wailing whenever the suggestion is made. 

The doctor warned Phil about this, that Dan might lose a lot of confidence and security because of the attack. Phil didn’t believe him though, because that just isn’t like Dan. Apart from now it is. 

And Phil doesn’t know how to handle it.

 

*****

“Don’t make me do it, Phil. Please.” 

Dan’s eyes are huge, stunning irises amplified by the acidic shine of his tears, and Phil almost wants to cave in. Wants to, but he can’t; it’s been two weeks and Dan still hasn’t left the house, hasn’t even looked out of an open window. It isn’t healthy and both boys know it, yet both are reluctant to do anything to counter it. Phil because he despises making Dan anything but happy and Dan because, well, that’s just it; Phil doesn’t know. But at the same time he does. 

Dan’s afraid, petrified. So scared in fact that he’s been known to cry himself to the point of vomiting just to get out of leaving the house. 

Phil wants to hug Dan and tell him that he won’t ever make him do anything he doesn’t want to, but that’s just an impossibility now. The doctor wants to give Dan medication for the anxiety, the depression, and Phil kind of thinks that this would be a good thing at this point; Dan getting that kind of help to deal with everything. It’s still up to Phil to get Dan going outside again, though. 

And he’s not about to fail his boyfriend. 

“It’s just a little walk down the road, Dan. I’ll hold your hand the entire trip and if anyone so much as looks at you too long I’ll go all overprotective-boyfriend on them and make sure they leave you alone.” Phil reaches out a hand for Dan to take and the younger just looks at it like it’s reaching out to strangle him, not help him. “C’mon, you can’t just stay in here for ever. Not because of one bad person.”

Dan’s air of stubbornness is dropped immediately and he catapults himself into Phil’s arms, giving Phil no option but to drop his act of harsh commandment in favour of hugging the trembling boy back. He knows that Dan’s scared, he can feel his boyfriend’s heartbeat screaming it at him through their clothes, and that kills him; all he wants is for Dan to be happy, for Dan to feel safe simply because he trusts that Phil would never let anything hurt him ever again. 

Phil untangles himself from the starved embrace and tilts Dan’s chin up with his hand; the eye-contact might be forced but it still holds the same amount of love as it always does. Just this time, the love kind of hurts both of them to see because they both know that they are letting the other down in some way or another.

“I’m scared, Philly.” It’s so small and obvious and weak that it makes Phil’s insides ache with hatred for the world and adoration for his Danosaur. “It’s just, what if-“

Phil cuts him off with a kiss; deep and pure, just on-going until he feels the tension drain out of Dan’s muscles and melt into the contact. 

“I’ll be holding your hand.” Phil whispers, sincere and intense. “Nothing can happen to you when I’m holding your hand.”

Not trusting his voice through fear of it listening to his head in place of his heart, Dan just nods and takes the invitation of Phil’s hand; a look of determination and hope igniting in his eyes for the first time since the stabbing. 

And Phil couldn’t be prouder.


End file.
